A court in Odisha sentenced a couple to life in prison for killing their teenage daughter over her relationship with an older man. They tried to burn the body and hide the evidence, but later confessed to the crime.
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Odisha: A Sessions Court has given life imprisonment to a mother and father for murdering their own 15-year-old daughter. The court found that the parents killed their daughter after they found out that she was in a love relationship with an older man. This shocking incident has been called a case of “honour killing” by the judge.
The parents not only murdered the girl but also tried to hide their crime in a very disturbing way. After killing their daughter, they burnt her body. Then, they collected her burnt ashes in plastic gunny bags and threw those bags into a nearby river so that nobody would know what happened.
The judgment was passed by Additional Sessions Judge Bijaya Kumar Jena, who clearly stated that this crime was an act of honour killing. But the judge said it was not the most extreme kind of case where the death penalty is required.
“Since this case does not come under the category of rarest of rare case and such type of honour killing is taking place in the society, I sentence both the convicts (parents of the deceased) to undergo imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs.10,000/- each in default to undergo further imprisonment for a period of six months each for the offence U/s 302 IPC,”
-the court said in its order on April 19.
The crime took place in February 2016. A woman from the village said that she heard the young girl crying and begging her father to let her live. She promised him that she would not continue the love affair with the older man. But sadly, the next morning, the girl was dead.
This same woman also told the police that she saw the girl’s parents performing a secret cremation of their daughter’s body in a dry pond. According to her, the parents took the ashes, packed them in plastic bags, and with the help of some other villagers, threw them into a river to hide what they had done.
The police filed cases not only against the parents but also against some villagers who were said to have helped in destroying the evidence.
One of the co-accused villagers was the same man with whom the minor girl was in a relationship. The girl’s parents were not happy with this relationship. He was accused of raping the girl many times and was booked under both the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO Act).
During the trial, the court listened to the statements of 30 people who came as witnesses from the prosecution side. The court also checked the girl’s school records and confirmed that she was only about 15 years old at the time of her death, which made her a minor.
Many people who were called as witnesses said that they knew the girl had died around 8 years ago, but they said they had no idea how the murder happened. Because of this, the court treated them as hostile witnesses, which means they didn’t support the case properly.
One important detail is that the woman who first told the police about the crime later told the court that she was not actually at the crime scene. She also said that someone had made her sign a blank paper, which was later used to file the FIR without her knowing what was written on it.
But the biggest piece of evidence came from the parents themselves. During police questioning, they confessed that they had killed their daughter. They told the police that they tried to make the death look like a suicide. Then they burnt her body in a dry pond near their home and threw the ashes in a river.
Later, the couple changed their story and said they were innocent. But the court did not believe their new version because there was enough other evidence that matched their original confession.
The judge ruled that the confession was supported by strong material and facts. So, the parents were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. The court also gave them another punishment of five years of rigorous imprisonment under Section 201 of the IPC because they tried to destroy the proof of the crime.
The court, however, gave relief to the other villagers who were earlier accused of helping the parents. They were all found not guilty. Also, the man who was said to have raped the girl was found not guilty by the court for both the rape and POCSO charges.
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